


The Gruesome Twosome

by Courfeyrock_crushes_scissors



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: F/M, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Past Child Abuse, Pedophilia mention, Richie Tozier Has a Sister, Suicide Attempt, Suicide mention, also this is based off skeleton twins, the abuse stuff is referenced but not described in detail, the other losers are mostly mentioned sorry, they're twins!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:41:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21618535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Courfeyrock_crushes_scissors/pseuds/Courfeyrock_crushes_scissors
Summary: Following Richie Tozier's suicide attempt, his twin sister Bea forces him to return to Derry to rekindle their broken relationship and find himself. He reunites with Eddie Kaspbrak, local pharmacist and longtime childhood friend. Reuniting with Mr. Robert Gray, his former English teacher and predator, was not on his list of things he wanted to do this year.//Based on the movie Skeleton Twins featuring Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig!Warning: this was not tagged as underage, as the characters are all of-age. However, there is reference of underage, student-teacher relationship that is portrayed as ABUSE and NOT OKAY. If this disturbs you or will cause you distress, please do not read!
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Richie Tozier & Bea Tozier
Comments: 3
Kudos: 23





	The Gruesome Twosome

Richie couldn’t really tell what time it was anymore. He remembered that, at some point, his alarm had gone off. He couldn’t remember how long ago that had happened. Or maybe he’d imagined the whole thing; he wasn’t prone to hallucinations, but there were times in between where he seemed to lose time. 

The alarm clock in question had been upended, reading something indiscernible to his eyes. Had he smacked the alarm clock quiet? When had he moved? It had to have been hours since then, because it felt like a dream. Maybe it had been a dream. Maybe this was all a horrible fucking nightmare, and maybe he’d wake up from it soon. 

The sound of cars honking, a soundtrack of his miserable existence, pulled him from his thoughts. It sounded like a lot of traffic outside, which meant it was either early morning work, or he’d managed to spend another day in bed without realizing it. Or perhaps he was lucky, and had found himself conscious in the middle of the day; still rife with opportunity and hope to get something done. 

When Richie managed to pull himself from bed, legs tangled in musty, unwashed sheets, he found the time to be somewhere after 2 pm, if he squinted enough without his glasses. Where the fuck were his glasses? Oh, right. They were haphazardly tossed aside, somewhere on the floor near his jeans. Just moving this much felt like it was sapping the energy from him. He didn’t have to work today, so what the fuck was the point anyway? 

Glasses on, he managed to make his way around the piles of laundry, and over the discarded waste basket he must’ve knocked over on his way to bed. Last night was blurry, and frankly, depressing. More depressing than the morning had presented itself to be, so he elected to not dwell on it. But when you think about not thinking about something ...well, that’s when you tend to think about it the most. 

Richie Tozier’s nightly routine had become one that was depressingly predictable. Drink, reminisce about failures, drink more, and pass out before vomiting. Sometimes he’d manage to wake up to piss, before dragging himself to bed somewhere before dawn. Christ, he was a fucking mess. 

He’d managed to get himself to the counter, rifling through the cabinets, trying to find one clean cup to drink out of. He found nearly nothing, before he managed to find an old Christmas mug from so many years ago. Had to be when he’d first started working at the stupid Italian restaurant. He wanted to smash it to bits, but somehow refrained. Instead, he’d elected to fill it with scalding hot coffee, and chased it with a cigarette. 

With no work, and certainly no play, it left Richie to his thoughts. Which, frankly, was a dangerous pastime.

The fish tank nearby bubbled and hummed, and he stooped down to get a better look at the fish that blinked back with bulbous eyes. “I wish I was a fish,” he mumbled for a second, voice bone-dry from sleep. He cleared his throat and shook his head. “Isn’t that just fucking sad?” It was. It sure felt pretty fucking miserable. 

The apartment looked a mess. And almost mockingly, as he sat down, was that fucking picture. A framed photo of himself and perfect, studly, ex-boyfriend Connor. The split had been neither mutual, nor amicable. Perhaps the mess had begun filling the space where Connor had left gaps. The place where his records had sat were now filled with beer cans. A painting of birds was now replaced with a poster of the movie Scream, which he didn’t even particularly like. 

He had needed to fill all the places that felt empty. He was used to the apartment feeling...warm. Inviting. Like home. Now it felt so fucking empty and awful. And maybe that wasn’t just Connor’s fault. His depression wasn’t just magically gone when he was around...but fuck, it was manageable. He’d been momentarily rescued, able to breathe fresh air, for those two and half blissful years. 

Perhaps blissful wasn’t the right word. Peaceful, maybe. Monotonous, perhaps. Content. He had been content. It was better than this. Whatever the fuck this was. 

As he sipped his coffee, he felt something begin to boil in his stomach. 

_ You don’t have any aspirations, Richie. Get a life. Do something besides waiting tables. You’re wasting yourself away.  _

He did have fucking aspirations, thank you. 

He kicked the picture right off the table, watching it sail through the air. It hit the floor, giving a sickening shatter before it slid across the floor and stopped a few feet away. Something else to clean up. And he wasn’t wearing any goddamn socks or shoes. Fuck. 

This really all seemed so...pointless. Why have aspirations when they were wrong to begin with? They’d all been right; the people who’d told him he wasn’t good enough to make it in the business.  _ You’re funny, Richie. You’re just not that funny. _

Well, that was abundantly fucking clear, wasn’t it? 

A stack of half-opened mail sat nearby. He’d managed to somehow pay his bills this month, just shy of having the electricity shut off. At least that was one thing to be somewhat proud of, right? Who fucking knew Chicago was this fucking expensive? Next to the pile of mail, sat a book. 

_ Attic Room. _ The title read. A haunting picture of a door, cracked slightly open, with fingers curled around the edges.  _ Written by Bill Denbrough.  _

Aw, Bill. What a fucking right pal he’d been, hadn’t he? He’d made it out, hadn’t he? He’d managed to finally have his writing take off. Selling big to all the companies. Richie had heard they were going to make some of these into movies. 

He wasn’t viciously jealous of Bill. No, he was quite happy for him. Fuck, all of his friends deserved to get the fuck out of Derry and move on to big things. He just wished he could’ve been one of them, ya know? Sometimes, he wondered if he could rub elbows with some of Bill’s friends. Get himself in. But fuck, what a cop out, right? That would be fucked up to do to Bill. Just wrong. So he never did, and he never called. And he sat, and he waited. For what? Nothing. 

Nothing was going to happen. Sitting here and doing nothing reaped the same rewards as if he was going out and auditioning every day. 

A scrap piece of paper laid nearby. Blank, and seeming to taunt him. The pen that sat near to it, used for writing checks that he was scared would bounce once delivered to the companies that billed him, beckoned him. Write! Write something down! Write something down, anything! Why did his fingers itch to write? Why did they beg for words? 

When he picked up the pen, something seemed almost...finite. Something in him searched for words like it was the most important thing to him to know these words. Maybe...just maybe, he knew all along. That these words would be the ones to be his legacy. 

When he had woken up that morning, like every morning, he’d felt that impending doom sink upon his shoulders, like Atlas holding the world upon his own rigid back. To a titan or a demigod, perhaps a noble feat. To a weak man of thirty, with nowhere to go...you begin to crumble into dust. Richie had shattered like dried out clay, crumbling and turning to orange, terracotta dust in the sun. 

The pen gripped in hand, Richie trembled as he brought it to that scrap of paper. He didn’t take care to notice what was on the back; it didn’t really matter, did it? These were the final words to his life, weren’t they? He hadn’t just spontaneously decided it was time...perhaps it was just natural. Today was the day. Perhaps it had always been the day, whether he knew it or not. 

Pen to paper. He wrote out his final words to an empty apartment. 

_ To whom it may concern,  _

_ See you later. _

He paused after he finished writing. A small smile came to his face, before it had just as quickly disappeared. A smiley face was tacked onto the end of the note, in truly gruesome humor. That was the Tozier signature, after all. 

Richie thought of nothing else as he marched himself, a hollow soldier, to the bathroom. The bathtub seemed to fill itself, because he couldn’t remember when he had filled it. He could remember Connor’s face when he’d left. He could remember a lot of things, but he couldn’t remember the small things today. 

When had he woken up, and when had he last showered, and when did he begin running the water? It was too hot. His brain told him that, even as it filled. The water is too hot. But it was almost as if...he was on autopilot. It was his time, he knew that. He didn’t have time to wait for the water to cool down. 

If he didn’t do this now, he’d never do it.

When he sunk into the hot water, now stripped from clothes and staring at the ceiling, his glasses fogged up from the steam. His body felt raw, red and boiled. He almost couldn’t stand it. He wiped his glasses as they fogged up, but it seemed the fog was coming over his eyes, rather than the glasses themselves. Was this what it felt like to die? Hm. Maybe it wasn’t so bad after all. 

The water was running red, and he didn’t back out. He waited. He did nothing. 

_______________

  
  


Bea Tozier stood over the sink, glancing from the sink and back to the mirror. Her face looked worse than ever, she thought. Fuck. As she leaned over and vomited into the sink, tasting the remnants of her breakfast, she cursed herself a million times over. 

This fucking sucked. She didn’t feel pregnant, and she hoped to god she wasn’t. She wasn’t ready. She really wasn’t, but there was the perfect plan laid out in front of her. 

Get the job, get the husband, the house! Now, it was time to finish the list. This new addition to the list was made by her husband, sure, but she had agreed. It was time to have a baby. But it didn’t feel like it was time. Was it? 

As she rifled through the cabinets, looking for medicine, she stumbled across an old pregnancy test. Something akin to fear had shot through her spine in that moment, and she shoved it into the back. She didn’t want to know. No one had to know if she was or not. It wasn’t anyone else’s business. It was her business and her fucking ovaries and uterus and all that bullshit. 

But as her phone began to buzz, her body jolted, sending her head upwards and into the edge of the sink. 

“Fuck!” she hissed, holding the back of her head. “Fuck…” the spot already felt intensely tender, and it felt like she was seeing stars. Ouch. Didn’t feel like a minor concussion, but god knows, right? 

It finally registered to her that the phone was still ringing; an unknown caller from Chicago. Wild. Usually she wouldn’t respond to spam numbers, but today had been feeling rather...strange. Go against the normal, her brain had screamed. So she answered. 

“Hello?” 

“Hello, is this Beatrice Tozier?” the woman’s voice on the other end was unfamiliar. “We’re with Northwestern Memorial--” 

“How did you get this number? I’m on the do not call list, so,” Bea began, irritated already. These fuckers and their goddamn telemarketer bullshit, what the fuck kind of scam were they trying to pull on her now? 

“Miss Tozier,” the woman began again, a sense of urgency in her voice that made Bea stop her tangent and listen in. This sounded serious. Either it was the most convincing scam, or this was something big. 

“Your brother, Richie, has been brought in today. He attempted suicide, Miss Tozier. He’s alright, but...you’re his only medical contact.” A pause rang out between them. “Miss Tozier?” 

Bea gripped the sink with white knuckles, a tremble to her body as she thought. Fuck. Richie...oh Richie. 

“What was the name of the hospital?” 

And that was how she found herself flying to Chicago and sitting in the waiting room of a hospital. She hadn’t seen Richie in...years. Christ, ten years now. Ten long years, and this was how she was about to be reacquainted with her brother. The plane ride had felt like a blur; a rush of packing a suitcase, and fumbling through a terminal with half a mind.

If she was honest, she couldn’t remember how she had gotten from the airport to the hospital. She had to have taken a cab, but who had driven her? Had she spoken to them? That didn’t really matter, though. 

The hospital smelled bad. Like floor cleaner and antiseptic, and something else she couldn’t quite place. The psych ward waiting room was vacant, mostly, save for a few frazzled looking visitors, clearly waiting to be taken to the rooms of their suicidal friends and family. How depressing was that? 

Depression wasn’t reserved exclusively for the older of the twins, no. Bea had suffered with it her whole life, along with her brother. Maybe that was what had made it so manageable back then. Having someone to share in the morbid camaraderie made it so much easier. 

When and why had they drifted so far apart? No, she knew the answer to that, and tried not to dwell on it too hard. They were answers that made her blood boil, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to look at him the same way once she was in the room. She was glad for the reminder once the nurse popped her head out. 

Her teeth were yellow, and she smelled of cigarettes on her clothes. Her mother had always pointed out teeth, and she found herself noticing the smallest parts of people now. Bea shivered at the thought. Christ, was she turning into her mother? That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but...where her parents had ended up, she wasn’t sure if she necessarily wanted to follow in the path of either of them. 

The nurse’s name wasn’t clear, but she followed the sight of her dull blue scrubs, all the way to the end of the hall. Clutched between her fingers was a brown paper bag, with a few chocolate donuts with sprinkles. Something of a tradition she hoped to remind her brother of, to reignite his flame. 

It was worse than she expected. When had Richie gotten so old? 

He was still the same rascally boy she had known all those years ago, but Christ, did he look older. Worn down. Like the world had been chipping away at him for so long, until finally...well, it had chipped too much away. He was starting to show age around his eyes, where laugh lines were present. Though she wasn’t sure if those were laugh lines, or stress wrinkles. Maybe both. Richie had been known to laugh himself out of plenty of situations in his youth. 

“Richie,” the nurse said, breaking the silence that had lingered in the air as her brother lay, somewhere between sleep. “Someone’s here to visit.” 

Richie opened his eyes. They seemed to search the room before they landed on Bea, who stood a few feet from the bed. “Hey, Trashmouth,” she said as she came closer to the bed to give his leg a little shake. The bandages around his wrists told her everything she needed to know. 

“Bea,” Richie mumbled, using one hand to rub the sleep from his eyes. “Been a while, huh? Welcome to my home.” He gestured about the room, towards bland, cream walls and beeping machinery that played as the room’s soundtrack. “Make yourself comfortable.” 

There was a sense of tension between them. The world had made this idea that twins are two halves of a whole. For one to live without the other was insanity. Growing in the womb, well, that meant something, didn’t it? But sharing a womb with someone meant nothing, in reality. 

Once upon a time, they had been thick as thieves. Partners in crime. But it wasn’t like that anymore, was it? No, certainly not. They were different now. Richie’s dark, messy hair had started to grey, just barely. Towards the roots. Something he hated but made no effort to hide. 

Bea herself wasn’t the same dark-haired beauty she’d been in high school. Still an attractive woman, sure, but the sleek and slender curves were starting to barely round out as she crested the age of 30. She had been slacking on exercise in the last few years, so she had no one to blame but herself. Having a few glasses of wine was also not helping. Age showed in her tired smile and the way her eyes no longer seemed to glow as brightly as they once did. 

They were tired, and age was not a friend to either of them. 

She sat on the edge of his bed, taking care to not disrupt the web of wires that seemed to weave in and out of her brother at the moment. “What happened, Rich?” She asked, voice barely above a whisper. She couldn’t quite wrap her brain around it all. Why? Why had he done it, why hadn’t he just called her?

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Richie said after a moment. Saying “my boyfriend broke up with me” sounded so stupid and cliche. And in reality, it wasn’t why he tried to kill himself. There were tons of people in the world, why do that over a tightwad with a stick up his ass like Connor Bowers? Fuck that. But it had been the match that was tossed into the dry haystack of bullshit that he called his life. 

“Would you believe it if I said it was for love?” He tried to joke, bringing a hand up to his forehead, like some withering damsel in distress. Bandages disrupted, he winced and brought his arm back down to cradle it loosely in his palm. Fuck, why did that have to hurt so bad? 

“Beep beep. Not funny, Richard.” Bea said, dry in tone. Any humor left in his eyes seemed to be sapped out at that moment, and he deflated. “This isn’t funny. You could’ve died.” 

“You think I don’t know that,  _ Beatrice _ ?” He nearly sneered the name, but refrained. Mainly because he was too damn tired to think of anything particularly witty or scathing. “Kinda what I was going for.” The prolonged silence was awkward and heavy. Yeah, that was the whole point of this, wasn’t it? 

“You have someone back home?”

He shook his head no. Not anymore, he didn’t. Richie rubbed an eye behind his glasses, looking exhausted and worn down. She couldn’t tell if he looked thinner because of the hospital gown, or if he’d just stopped eating altogether at this point. It was almost scary how thin he looked. 

“Come back with me. To Derry. It could be good for you. They just fixed up the library, you know, it doesn’t look so much like a shithole anymore.” 

“Fixed it up, huh? Did they somehow manage to convince Pottery Barn moms and dads to overlook the town’s history of child murders?” Richie asked, eyebrow raising. There was a sliver of the Richie she had known, peeking through the gray hair and furrowed brow. Something in the way he squinted, with mouth almost pursed; ready to fire off another zinger at any moment. 

“Who cares about adolescent homicide when you can get a great price on an apartment?” It was a jest, but in it lay a truth. Bea had only stayed in Derry because of the sudden boom in economy there; it stopped being a ghost town, and started being something worth staying for. 

“I’m serious, Richie. Derry isn’t like it used to be. And I’m not letting you go home to sit in your apartment alone. So, you’re coming to Derry with me. Got it?” How bossy could she be, really? Richie remembered suddenly why he loved and hated her. She might be his internal voice of reason, but god she was annoying.

With a withering look, and a look of triumphant from the other, it was the sealing of a deal. Richie Tozier was going back to Derry, whether he liked it or not. 

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for checking this out! I'm planning on actually updating this semi-regularly, maybe once a week, or once every two weeks, depending! Check me out on Tumblr @ coulrophobictozier !


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